Introduction

This is an exploration of the possibility of radical existential coherence in engaging with the otherness of the wider world. It endeavours to distinguish cognitive radicalization from its current primary association with political radicalization -- and especially through its violent expressions in religious fundamentalism. This is now highlighted on the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 events in the USA and by their aftermath worldwide in the global "war on terrorism".

The primary association thereby justifies policies of counter-radicalization inhibiting potentially valuable challenges to conventional mindsets. Framing radicalization as unquestionably dangerous in this way then implies that socialization, as widely favoured and promoted, constitutes a form of "grooming" in its most questionable sense.

Despite calls for "new thinking" and a "paradigm shift", the disastrous failure of global governance (currently widely acknowledged in response to more recent events) has been characterized by a pattern of conventional thinking (Ungovernability of Sustainable Global Democracy? Towards engaging appropriately with time, 2011). The question here is whether there is scope for far more unconventional cognitive approaches to more effective engagement with the evident paradoxes and contradictions -- if only for the individual seeking to thrive in that context. What indeed are the "rules of engagement"?

The argument here takes special account of the extent to which cognition is increasingly constrained by information overload, attention deficiency, and the limited capacity to communicate knowledge and insight effectively -- especially between relatively incommensurable worldviews. Of particular concern is the partial connectivity of elements of knowledge, thereby losing integrative insight dependent on a systemic perspective. In this sense it recognizes the extent to which individuals and collectivities are increasingly "cocooned", however this may be described (Dynamically Gated Conceptual Communities, 2004). Also recognized is the problematic risk of a radical form of memetic singularity (Emerging Memetic Singularity in the Global Knowledge Society, 2009).

It follows that where greater competence and expertise are only available "elsewhere", with a degree of investment that is considered impossible or unjustified, the individual (or group) is then forced to rely on immediately accessible resources. This is irrespective of however crude and inadequate they may be, as deprecated from "elsewhere". This "information situation" -- effectively "permanent" -- is appropriately illustrated metaphorically by individuals in "info-shacks" in slums and refugee camps, whatever the degree of external assistance.

It is within this context, to the extent that an individual experiences it as credible, that capacity to engage with more radical reframing of the relation to externalities constitutes an opportunity. Any sense of actively "enjoying oneself" may then be explored in terms of "enjoying the world" as an externality creatively reframed. Any quest for radical coherence, as an emergent integrative experience, may then be associated with the integrative potential of globalization -- itself then subject to radical reframing.

Radicalization is a highly individualized process determined by the complex interaction of
various personal and structural factors. Because no one theory can exhaustively explain
it, policymakers must understand the many paths to radicalization and adopt flexible
approaches when trying to combat it.

The role of religion in the radicalization process is debated, but theories that set aside
ideology and religion as factors in the radicalization of Western jihadists are not convincing. Policymakers who choose to tackle religious aspects should do so cautiously, however,
cognizant of the many implications of dealing with such a sensitive issue.

Policymakers need to determine whether a counter-radicalization strategy aims to tackle violent radicalism alone or, more ambitiously, cognitive radicalism. The relation between the
two forms is contested. Challenging cognitive radicalism, though possibly useful for both
security and social cohesion purposes, is extremely difficult for any Western democracy.

As evidence emerges about the backgrounds of those convicted of terrorist offences, it is clear that many of them were initially influenced by what some have called 'non-violent extremists' and then took those radical beliefs to the next level by embracing violence.

Challenges to status quo: As argued on a blog (Silent Fault Lines, December 2010), the question is how democracies deal with the ideas that suggest negating the existing structures:

Democracies need to solve problems constantly and need to enhance the capacities while adjusting to the dynamic structural changes. Radicals don't believe the potentials of the existing structures and try to replace those with something else. While enhancing the stretching capacity of democratic ideals, it is necessary to strengthen and empower the rule of law when radicalism is in rise with its many forms and manifestations.

"New thinking"? This whole framing of "cognitive radicalism" effectively subsumes an extensive spectrum of radical re-examination of assumptions. Such "new thinking", characteristic of paradigm shifts fundamental to science, might be said to be the meat of much philosophy, theology, mysticism and art -- if not of creativity in general.

The framing bears every resemblance to the preoccupation of dominant cultural systems with ensuring that the preferred worldview is in no way challenged or disrupted. This is defensively conflated with understandings of "our way of life". Examples have long been evident within religious systems and more recently in dictatorial applications of communist ideology. The preoccupation has been well-described by George Orwell as that of the secret police in his dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). As Orwell portrayed his Thought Police, it might be construed as an effort to legitimate thought control (Kathleen Taylor, Brainwashing: the science of thought control, 2006).

As an indication that little has been learnt in the community of global leaders, wide publicity was given to the statement in anticipation of the tenth anniversary of 9/11 by Tony Blair -- complicit with George Bush in the policy failures of the past decade -- to the effect that the West faces a "long and hard struggle to defeat terrorism.". As presented by Nicholas Watt (Tony Blair calls for regime change in Iran and Syria, The Guardian, 9 September 2011).

Blair warns that the world still faces a lengthy battle to defeat groups that have distorted Islam. "We are a long way from getting out of this," he says. The former prime minister adds: "The threat is still from the same ideology and the same narrative which is based on a perverted view of religion and which regards cultures and faiths as in fundamental conflict with each other."

Blair says Britain and the US had initially failed to understand the popularity of the theory that the west is intent on conflict. "I think the thing that we came to learn later is that even though the number of actual extremists was very small, the number of people who bought a certain amount of the narrative that gave rise to that extremism was worryingly large."

Maintaining the status quo: It might then be said that the conventional efforts to frame cognitive radicalism are consistent with the systemic efforts of conventional dynamics to maintain the status quo -- irrespective of the challenges with which governance is so evidently faced and with respect to which authorities are so manifestly incapable of engendering sustainable solutions (Ungovernability of Sustainable Global Democracy? 2011; Tomorrow, Who Will Govern the World?, 2011).

Reformers, critics of institutions, consultants in innovation, people in short who "want to get something done", often fail to see this point. They cannot understand why their strictures, advice or demands do not result in effective change. They expect either to achieve a measure of success in their own terms or to be flung off the premises. But an ultra-stable system (like a social institution)... has no need to react in either of these ways. It specializes in equilibrial readjustment, which is to the observer a secret form of change requiring no actual alteration in the macro-systemic characteristics that he is trying to do something about. (Stafford Beer onLe Chatelier's Principleas applied to social systems:The Cybernetic Cytoblast - management itself.Chairman's Address to the International Cybernetic Congress, September 1969)

It may therefore be argued that the current framing of cognitive radicalism is an unfortunately predictable conflation of concerns comparable to the attitude of dysfunctional monarchical systems to arguments advocating democracy.

The purported threat to a "way of life" is seemingly built on the pillars of (increasing) inequality, characterized by the unrelenting suffering of millions, and the ever-repeated promises of a better future, characteristically broken and postponed:

as indicated by the former Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard (A Way of Life Attacked, The Age, 5 September 2011)

Information and communication constraints

Ignorance-based civilization?: As noted above, cognition is increasingly constrained by information overload, attention deficiency, and limited capacity to communicate knowledge and insight effectively -- especially between relatively incommensurable worldviews. Despite the enthusiasm articulated by James Gleick (The Information: a history, a theory, a flood, 2011), all are therefore rendered increasingly ignorant relative to the amount of knowledge "available" to which meaningful access is inhibited, as separately argued (Governance through ignorance in a knowledge-based society, 2011).

The point was made that global civilization is necessarily "ignorance-based" to a significant degree, however much the emphasis is placed on the availability of knowledge and the investment in "intelligence gathering". Factors include:

Again, as noted above, of particular concern is the partial connectivity of elements of knowledge, thereby losing integrative insight dependent on a systemic perspective. In this sense individuals and collectivities are increasingly "cocooned", however this may be described (Dynamically Gated Conceptual Communities, 2004). Consistent with the argument regarding "grooming" is the degree to which that cocoon is externally reinforced through the cultivation of individual "filter bubbles" (Eli Pariser, The Filter Bubble: what the Internet is hiding from you, 2011).

Ironically elicited meaning is then a product of a much-deprecated process of "cherry picking" from the mass of information, perhaps even restricted to "low-hanging fruit" -- in the light of preferential biases ("ripeness", "colour", etc), as separately argued (Systems of Categories Distinguishing Cultural Biases, 1993). This has long been illustrated in the arbitrary distinguishing and naming of constellations from a particular "worldview".

what is the metaphoric surface on which "descriptive" information / knowledge can be appropriately "written" (enscribed), namely whether the emphasis on "points" and "lines" is adequate to articulation and comprehension of "global" complexity, notably in the light of the greater relevance of toroidal forms to mapping associations, as argued by Michael Schiltz and separately discussed (Beyond the plane: form and medium in terms of the calculus of indications, 2006). In contrast to the plane surface of a simple matrix, a torus holds an interesting position in the discussion of the relationship between form and medium as fundamental to advanced theories of communication. This notably featured in the work of Niklas Luhmann (Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft, 1997) and discussed by Michael Schiltz (Form and Medium: a mathematical reconstruction, Image [&] Narrative, 6, 2003) in relation to the calculus of indications of George Spencer-Brown (Laws of Form, 1969/1994). Schiltz notes that form/medium is "the image for systemic connectivity and concatenation", as described by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela. Schiltz notes, that the notion of "space" is the key to reflexivity appropriate to any discussion of form and medium.

I really can't do a good job, any job, of explaining magnetic force in terms of something else that you're more familiar with because I don't understand it in terms of anything else that you're more familiar with. (cited in 20 Things You Didn't Know About... Magnetism, Discover Magazine, July-August 2011).

Info-shacks vs Info-silos: It follows that where greater competence and expertise are only available "elsewhere", with a degree of investment that is considered impossible or unjustified "here and now", the individual is then forced to rely on immediately accessible knowledge resources -- however crude and inadequate. As such, these may well be deprecated from "elsewhere".

This "information situation" -- effectively "permanent" -- is appropriately equivalent to individuals and their families in "information shacks" (or "kno-shacks") in slums and refugee camps with many others, whatever the degree of external assistance and promises for the future. There is a splendid irony to this necessity for many to "rediscover the wheel"-- much as it is deprecated by those better informed -- given the metaphoric use of the wheel as the most fundamental symbol of integration.

The information "habitat" as a metaphor may also be used to question assumptions relating to the "higher" education characteristic of greater knowledge -- when its acquisition can be enabled. This may be usefully compared with rising to higher floors in a building offering wider perspectives, as in the institutionalization in "skyscrapers" of education and its applications. Such elevated perspectives typically ignore the challenge for those on the ground and their need to navigate the dynamics of a more complex terrain in order to survive, most notably through acquisition of "streetwise" skills.

The role of authority with respect to information habitats can also be clarified using both the shack and skyscraper metaphors. In the former case, irrespective of prescribed "health and safety" building codes, the capacity to require and ensure their implementation in practice is highly limited. The requisite materials and skills are simply not available from "elsewhere". In the case of the skyscrapers, effectively constructed according to such prescriptions, the capacity to engage with those obliged to live "on the street" is very limited (exemplified by the expression "information silos"). The latter may well have greater ability to roam widely across the urban terrain through "no go" areas, as understood from a "higher perspective".

It is a curious feature of happiness and enjoyment, as discussed below, that it effectively defies the above information constraints. It is a necessarily a direct and unmediated experience.

Constrained "deliverance" capacity of governance

It is conventionally assumed that governance has the capacity to "deliver" solutions. Political parties and their leaderships are eloquent in their promises in this regard. The track record of failures to fulfil such commitments, and their diminishing credibility, has been widely noted (Tomorrow, Who Will Govern the World? Review, 2011; Abuse of Faith in Governance, 2009). As a consequence, there is now a somewhat extraordinary tendency in governance to use the "escalated" formulation of "pledges" and "vows" -- without any legally binding commitment however.

Understandings of "deliverance" of course have traditional religious connotations relating to the intervention of the divine in some form. This response to failure of "deliverance" by conventional governance is now matched by faith-based possibilities, as with the very recent declaration of Rick Perry -- the person who may well be elected as the next "most powerful man on the planet":

Right now, America is in crisis. We have been besieged by financial debt, terrorism, and a multitude of natural disasters. As a nation, we must come together and call upon Jesus to guide us through unprecedented struggles, and thank him for the blessings of freedom we so richly enjoy... Some problems are beyond our power to solve.... with praying people asking God's forgiveness, wisdom and provision for our state and nation. There is hope for America. It lies in heaven, and we will find it on our knees. (Rick Perry under fire for planning Christian prayer rally and fast, The Guardian, 5 August 2011)

At this time of writing both Rick Perry and Sarah Palin are rated front runners for the Republication candidacy for the US Presidency in 2012. Critics have argued that Perry's tendency to use prayer as public policy demonstrates, in the midst of a truly painful, wide-ranging and potentially catastrophic crisis in the nation's second most-populous state, how he would govern if he became president. As cited by Timothy Egan (Rick Perry's Unanswered Prayers, The New York Times, 11 August 2011), Perry stated in a speech in May explaining how some of the nation's most serious problems could be solved:

I think it's time for us to just hand it over to God, and say, 'God: You're going to have to fix this'

This could readily be interpreted as a form of extremism -- deriving from a form of cognitive radicalization. Others raise the question whether "craziness" is indeed what is required for global governance at this time, as noted by Christopher Caldwell (Leaders of today: do crises demand craziness?Financial Times, 2 September 2011) in referring both to Perry and to a recent study by Nassir Ghaemi (A First Rate Madness: : uncovering the links between leadership and mental illness, 2011). The latter indicates that in certain moments we might be better served by leaders with psychiatric problems:

The best crisis leaders are either mentally ill or mentally abnormal...The worst crisis leaders are mentally healthy.

The Western cult of happiness is indeed a strange adventure, something like a collective intoxication. In the guise of emancipation, it transforms a high ideal into its opposite. Condemned to joy, we must be happy or lose all standing in society. It is not a question of knowing whether we are more or less happy than our ancestors; our conception of the thing itself has changed, and we are probably the first society in history to make people unhappy for not being happy.

The comprehensive entry on happiness in the Catholic Enyclopedia is introduced as follows:

The primary meaning of this term in all the leading European languages seems to involve the notion of
good
fortune,
good
chance,
good
happening; but from a very early date in the
history
of
Greek
philosophy
the conception became the centre of keen
speculation
and dispute. What is
happiness? What are its constituents? What are the
causes
and
conditions
of
happiness? How, if at all, does it differ from pleasure? What are its
relations
to
man's
intellect, to his
will
, to his life as a whole? What is its position in a general theory of the universe? These are questions which have much occupied the various schools of philosophy and, indeed, have exercised
men
who would not be willingly accused of philosophizing.

Happiness, as noted there, has been variously understood as:

a matter of chance, arbitrarily bestowed by capricious fortune

a reward for goodness of life, whatever that might be held to be -- happiness being the highest good

the fruit of virtuous intellectual action, with the highest happiness corresponding to the highest virtue of the highest faculty, notably in the
contemplative
or
philosophic
life
of
speculation, in which (according to Aristotle) the
dianoetic
virtues
of understanding, science, and wisdom are exercised

perfect
happiness (beatitudo), as for Thomas Aquinas, is the true supreme, subjective end of
man, but is not attainable in this life but only in the hereafter (a belief shared by other Christian writers). It consists in the best exercise of the noblest
human
faculty, the intellect, on the one object of infinite worth. (Thomas Aquinas, Question 3: What is Happiness)

The Catholic Encyclopedia entry notes specifically with regard to Aristotle:

Theoria, or pure
speculation
, is the highest activity of
man
, and that by which he is most like unto the gods; for in this, too, the
happiness of the gods consists. It is, in a sense, a Divine
life... Happiness (eudaimonia), therefore with Aristotle, is not identical with pleasure (hedone), or even with the sum of pleasures. It has been described as the kind of well-being that consists in well-doing; and supreme
happiness is thus the well-doing of the best faculty. Pleasure is a concomitant or efflorescence of such an activity.

Eudaimonia: Whether transliterated as eudaimonia, eudaemonia, or eudemonia, this is the ancient Greek term commonly translated as happiness although it has been suggested that "human flourishing" is a more accurate translation. Etymologically, it consists of the word "eu" ("good") and "daimon" ("spirit").

As noted in the Wikipedia entry, the concept has variously featured in recent models of eudaimonia in psychology which emerged from studies of self-realization and the means of its accomplishment by researchers such as Erik Erikson, Gordon Allport, and Abraham Maslow. The distinction between eudaimonia and hedonic well-being has been made by C. D. Ryff (Happiness is everything, or is it? Explorations on the meaning of psychological well-being, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1989) using a six-factor structure based on the Aristotelian emphasis on the qualities of belonging and benefiting others, flourishing, thriving and exercising excellence (autonomy, personal growth, self-acceptance, purpose in life, environmental mastery, positive relations with others). Ryff also produced scales for assessing mental health which have resulted in research in well-being, health and successful aging (Dirk van Dierendonck, The construct validity of Ryff's Scales of Psychological Well-being -- and its extension with spiritual well-being, Personality and Individual Differences, 2004).

As also noted, eudaimonia features in modern moral philosophy as developed by Elizabeth Anscombe (Modern Moral Philosophy, 1958) who argues against morality dependent on an external authority rather than being grounded in the interests and well being of human moral agents, without appealing to any such lawgiver. Ethical systems that dispense with God as part of the theory are lacking the proper foundation for meaningful employment of concepts of what is morally right. Hence the subsequent interest in virtue ethics as an alternative to Utilitarianism, Kantian Ethics, and Social Contract theories (as noted by Julia Driver in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).

The "pursuit of happiness" is not only the title of Rajan's study but also figures as one of the
most famous phrases in the United States Declaration of Independence: Life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is recognized as
one of the "inalienable
rights" of man. In recognition of this, the web resources at pursuit-of-happiness.org stress "happiness
is understandable, obtainable and teachable". Curiously the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which it inspired, contains no reference to "happiness". The references to "joy" are primarily according to the legal usage of "enjoyment" of rights. The closest equivalent acknowledged is Article 3: "Everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of person."

Subjective well-being: Any focus on happiness should of course be seen in relation to the
creative initiative of Bhutan in developing Gross
National Happiness (GNH) since 1972 as an attempt
to define quality of life in more holistic and psychological terms than Gross
National Product. While conventional development models stress economic growth
as the ultimate objective, the concept of GNH is based on the premise
that true development of human society takes place when material and spiritual development
occur side by side to complement and reinforce each other. In 2007, Bhutan
ranked 8th out of 178 countries in Subjective Well-Being, a metric that has
been used by many psychologists (Adrian G. White, A
Global Projection of Subjective Well-being: a challenge to positive psychology? 2007).

The challenge for any individual is how to relate meaningfully a condition of "subjective well-being", as globally defined by authority through a "metric", to a personal situation in the here and now. Then the question is how to consider ways of enhancing that condition, especially in the light of the variety of possible understandings of happiness and enjoyment.

Happiness as art or science? The current interest in happiness by the social sciences would suggest that there is an emerging "science of happiness" which would include the "economics of happiness" and "happiness economics". Is there indeed an "applied science" of happiness -- even one capable of alleviating the worldview of the so-called "dismal science"?

The much-cited recent work by the Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler explore training of the human outlook such as to alter perception (The Art of Happiness: a handbook for livings, 1998; The Art of Happiness at Work, 2003). Happiness is presented as the purpose of life, but determined more by the state of the individual's mind than by external conditions, circumstances, or events. In that tradition, Mirko Fryba offers strategies for self-transformation, including some thirty detailed exercises (The Art of Happiness: teachings of Buddhist psychology, 1989) Other traditions have also framed happiness as an art (Chris Prentiss, Zen And the Art of Happiness, 2006), including Christianity (Ellen T. Charry, God and the Art of Happiness, 2010). This suggests that it may be better understood as an art than a science, perhaps as implied by the study by Mary Catherine Bateson (Composing a Life, 2001).

The question here is how happiness is "informed" by both art and science.

Contrasting understandings of happiness: There is a very extensive literature on happiness and its cultivation according to a variety of traditions and schools of thought down the centuries. The quantity and quality of such material implies a need to respond in the light of the information constraints noted above, namely selectively and inadequately in the light of expertise and insight extensively available "elsewhere". As emphasized below, it is then for each to elucidate and comprehend the meaning of happiness -- avoiding entrapment in the variety of definitional processes authoritatively offered.

Notable differences are to be found in the literature with respect to:

timing: whether perfect happiness is achievable in this life rather than in the life hereafter

material vs spiritual focus: the degree of association or transcendence of the pleasure of mundanities (and indulgence therein)

These different preferences suggest a remarkable consistency with the arguments for seven "axes of bias" identified by W. T. Jones (The Romantic Syndrome; toward a new methodology in cultural anthropology and the history of ideas, 1961) as previously summarized (Axes of Bias in Inter-Cultural Dialogue, 1993) and discussed more generally (Systems of Categories Distinguishing Cultural Biases, 1993). Whereas Jones tested his methodology on the predictable inadequacy of academic dispute regarding definitions of the "romantic period", the sterility of dispute regarding the nature of "happiness" might be usefully reframed by it.

Hedonism: Just as with questionable framing of cognitive radicalism (discussed above), enjoyment and happiness are readily framed restrictively in terms of indulgence in sensual delights. This may be extolled or deprecated as hedonism. . The deprecation of hedonism might itself be understood as coming in a variety of flavours:

from the religious perspective strongly deprecated by fundamentalism, whether of a Christian or Islamic variety.

as essentially misguided in terms of spiritual development, according to a variety of mystical and other traditions

as questionable in relation to cultivation of the "life of the mind"

En-joying oneself otherwise

How then to distinguish between enjoying the "pleasures of the world", the "mundanities", or the fulfilment of desires, from other modes of enjoying oneself? With respect to "globalization", is there more to the fortuitous allusion by Shakespeare's Hamlet to clearing the "distracted globe" (Andrew Gurr, Hamlet and the Distracted Globe, 1979), notably as cited by William Powers in making a case for cognitive "depth" (Hamlet's BlackBerry: building a good life in the digital age, 2011):

How does one enjoy "oneself"? Again, as with the discussion of cognitive radicalism and hedonism, the question calls for a focus beyond any auto-erotic suggestion of physical masturbation, or its metaphorical use in the description of questionable emotional, mental or spiritual stimulation.

Fruitful consideration of enjoying oneself also calls for a careful distinction from any more limited understandings of self-love exemplified by narcissism, arrogance, conceit, egocentrism or complacent self-contentment. Variously questionable possibilities are offered by such as Erich Fromm (The Art of Loving, 1956) and Robert H. Schuller (Self-Love: the dynamic force of success, 1980).

In his discussion of Plato's dialogue on the nature of knowledge Theaetetus, Yahei Kanayama (Perceiving Considering and Attaining Being: Theaetatus 184-186, 1987) notes that in the Philebus (21a-c):

... it is said that, if one lacked reason, memory, knowledge, and true judgement, one couldn't know whether one was enjoying oneself or not, nor remember that one had been enjoying oneself, nor judge that one was enjoying oneself when one was, nor calculate that one would enjoy oneself later on, and that such a life would not be a human life at all, but the life of a jelly-fish or some other creatures that live in shells (In: Julia Annas (ed), Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy: Volume V: 1987, 1988, p. 46)

The Greek word eupatheia... has a primary meaning of enjoying oneself, of making merry, and of enjoyment of luxuries... The sense of empathy in Edith Stein embraces some of the sense of joy in attention and identifying with another as a "person detector." Reviewing the dictionary options, it appears that both the identification with another and the imaginative and reflective projection on another could qualify as empathy, but the first sense avoids the subjective and idealist and appears to be the primary sense of the term as it is used by Edith Stein. The other person is experienced directly and judged to be another presence, but not "participated in" in content, by the empathizing person. Projection, in its more reflective quality, is a secondary sense of the term in Stein. The marriage of direct access to persons through empathetic judgment and the phenomenological approach to reflection and to the content of empathy brings two rich traditions in harmony. Husserl's contribution to a deeper grasp of the other through the phenomenological method is essential to Stein's final position.

McCullough continues by summarizing Stein's understanding of a Transcendent Other:

Empathy as an act and disposition has enormous importance in a world in which... we appear to be atomic individuals, determined by events and only of value as useful. Stein's replacement of the atomic individual with a more relational sense of the person puts her philosophy of the person outside the model of the windowless monads presented by Husserl.... Ultimately, the full realization of otherness comes only with the relation to the Transcendent Other.... In this [later] work, she presents the alternative to the philosopher's eyes which "are lined with eyes within... to catch the unconscious heart in the very act." The senses provide the images from which symbolic theology leads to the Transcendent Other since there is an "objective commonness" between the world of sense and the spiritual world, the world of beauty. Ultimately "all harmony and all commonness of beings subsists through it, (the Transcendent beauty) for it guides everything to itself through love and unifies everything in this striving." 65

Enabling greater enjoyment through cognitive radicalization

The possibility emphasized here is that greater "happiness" and "enjoyment" may well be associated with poorly explored -- or even marginalized -- forms of "cognitive radicalization", whatever that might be held to mean. Some examples of radicalization, and associated processes, have been clarified by Clark McCauley and Sophia Moskalenko (Friction: How Radicalization Happens to Them and Us, 2011). Radicalization may include:

unconventional skills enjoyed as a consequence of processes of personal development, possibly promoted (even controversially) by consultants and sects

poorly understood skills "enjoyed" by the "gifted"

traditional processes of spiritual development as promoted in a variety of cultures, and variously deprecated

"extreme" skills proudly developed by the military, including controversial boot camp disciplining

seemingly inexplicable mass murderers, such as Anders Breivik, as remarked by Kathleen Puckett (Beware the lone wolf radicals, New Scientist, 4 September 2011), they are typically highly intelligent and well educated, with no previous history of criminal violence but sharing a profound inability to forge meaningful relationships -- in contrast with typical members of extremist groups who never commit serious acts of violence.

The above-mentioned concerns with developing the "art" or "science" of happiness might, in some cases, be understood as requiring a form of cognitive radicalization -- where they imply a shift beyond conventional mindsets and comfort zones.

Again the point should be emphasized that there is a marked tendency to conflate any extreme modes of thinking with those deprecated as being conducive to violent behaviour. In a global society fearful of terrorism, the sitcom title of The Big Bang Theory is ironically well chosen, especially since its lead comedian received the Golden Globe Award (January 2011). The argument might even be caricatured as "normal = good", "extremism = bad" (Norms in the Global Struggle against Extremism: rooting for normalization vs. rooting out extremism? 2005). The irony is that the most radically extreme forms of thinking are those cultivated by fundamental physicists and cosmologists, typically challenging conventional understandings of space, time, matter and causality.

A useful exemplar of cognitive radicalization for this argument is the work of Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay Science: with a prelude in rhymes and an appendix of songs, 1974), originally published in German in 1882. This controversial work describes the technical skill required for poetry writing, employing for its title a usage known at that time. The title was first translated inappropriately into English as The Joyous Wisdom but references are made to his "science of joy" since it describes a propensity toward any rigorous practice of a poised, controlled, and disciplined quest for knowledge, otherwise typically translated as "science". The spirit of such engagement with the world is well captured by a later philosopher Paul Feyerabend (Conquest of Abundance: a tale of abstraction versus the richness of being, 1999).

Any challenge to this "constitutional" understanding, by any alternative approach to happiness, might well now be framed as an "un-American activity" and subject to the strictures of Homeland Security. As a form of cognitive radicalization, it might well be asked whether, in addition to prayer itself, other meditational practices could be so construed by any "Thought Police", as has been the case in the past.

Embodying the paradoxes and contradictions of the pursuit of happiness

Socio-political implications

This argument challenges current efforts to reframe cognitive radicalization as unquestionably associated, through conflation, with threats to a conventional "way of life" -- notably described as "non-negotiable". The increasingly evident inadequacies of global governance are associated with dependence on ever-increasing and unsustainable growth (Bob Lloyd, The Growth Delusion, Sustainability, 2009, 1, pp. 516-536). Enabling radical "new thinking", in the quest for new understandings of "sustainability", is usefully recognized as socially responsible -- in contrast with the social irresponsibility of inhibiting and criminalizing such tendencies.

Letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend is the policy for promoting progress in the arts and the sciences and a flourishing socialist culture in our land.

Following this brief liberalization, authorities engaged in repressive measures, forcing confessions, and sending the outspoken students to labour camps. An earlier variant is the requirement of an imprimatur by Catholic Church authorities, a declaration that a book or other printed work may be published -- confirming what is not contained therein, namely that it is is free of doctrinal or moral error. Digital imprimatur has been hypothesized as a system of internet censorship, about which there is increasing debate following leaks and invasions of privacy considered to be disruptive of conventional public order.

Will global "harmonization" and "normalization" come to be understood in such terms?

Authority: How are radically innovative approaches to psycho-social organization to be "authorized" in a period in which global governance authorities have proven to be highly constrained in their response to the conditions of the individual?

Does cognitive radicalization offer a poorly explored degree of freedom for the individual to "en-joy" the world otherwise?

Should conceptual "models" be recognized as "vehicles" which each is free to develop? Is it a case of "build your own" in a "do-it-yourself" mode -- where those claiming greaser competence are unable to deliver? (Metaphors as Transdisciplinary Vehicles of the Future, 1991)

Radicalization and the experience of terror: An earlier concern was with the identification of the nature of terror and who is exposed to it in the light of the range of its forms in the light of 9/11 (Varieties of Terrorism: extended to the experience of the terrorized, 2005). The purpose there was to demonstrate that "terror" is not just what lends itself to extensive representation according to media and legal criteria. The media cannot show the terror experienced daily by inarticulate "unimportant" people subject to every form of deprivation and suffering -- or even the bullying, intimidation and violence to which many are exposed in schools, housing estates or on the street -- whether or not these result in obviously violent death.

In a subsequent commentary, endeavouring to transcend the traps of simplistic moral relativism or moral equivalence, the concern was how to envisage the need for some other way of articulating the challenge (Thinking in Terror: refocusing the interreligious challenge from thinking after terror, 2005). As argued, there may well be a need to recognize new dimensions to the understanding and position of those righteously perceiving themselves as representing the innocent or "good" that are as questionable as the refusal to accept a degree of "good" in those framed as inherently "evil". This radical polarization, the "dualist thesis", excludes any possibility of dialogue. No doubt; no dialogue? It even suggests that attempts at such dialogue would be tantamount to "supping with the devil".

How is it that physics is empowered to explore even subtler "dimensions"?

That commentary concluded that there is a challenge offered by terrorism from both a spiritual perspective and from the scientific innovations offering ever more horrific means of causing terror. The challenge lies in whether the theoretical advances in the fundamental sciences regarding the nature of reality offer cognitive guidelines and templates through which dialogue can transcend the dualism separating religions. Pointers are, for example, offered by physicist David Bohm (Wholeness and the Implicate Order, 1980) and his subsequent deep involvement in dialogue processes, or by mathematician Ron Atkin (Multidimensional Man; can man live in 3-dimensional space?, 1981). People might thereby be carried into the "fabric of reality" through a process that may hold a key to the "invisible" character of the ubiquitous "unspeakable, inexplicable, unlocateable terror" (Engaging with the Inexplicable, the Incomprehensible and the Unexpected, 2010).

What exactly is the nature of the terror of the new -- and of change -- by which an aging population is likely to be ever more terrified? How will people be enabled to engage cognitively with such radical transformation? The challenge is already evident in the manner in which many are terrified by new technology and especially by information technology.

Identity: Fundamental to terror is the sense of threat to identity, whether of the individual, the community or the culture -- possibly framed as a "way of life". Any implication of change to identity is inherently terrifying -- a terror typically minimized by those who wish to change or transform others. The change is then framed as being for the greater good of the individual or the community.

These possibilities call into question the nature of the "order" in terms of which collective measures are repeatedly legitimated. That order, with which authority is typically identified, is characteristically rigid and resistant to change. It might well be said to be terrified by it -- as a threat to the status quo which it is assumed must be maintained at all costs. Missing are the templates for change, and reflection on its possibilities, most notably as indicated by the resources of geometry and topology (Geometry of Thinking for Sustainable Global Governance, 2009).

Identification with externalities: Despite the extremely radical reconceptualization of space and time, so intensively explored by physicists, the implications for the traditional identification of individuals and communities with "their" land (and property) remain to be explored. And yet it is precisely this ancient cognitive modality which is at the very root of widespread territorial violence disruptive of global civilization.

There are many clues to other possibilities, especially for cultural traditions heavily imbued with speculation in mathematics and geometry -- as is the case of Judaism and Islam (And When the Bombing Stops? Territorial conflict as a challenge to mathematicians, 2000). Provocatively, this failure might be attributed to the contrasting significance they respectively attach to number theory and to geometry -- sub-disciplines subtly and insightfully integrated within more fundamental forms of mathematics.

Given the many extant references to "mathematical joy", it might be asked whether "space" (in the form of "land") could be "en-joyed" in ways which remain to be explored. This could naturally be associated with "en-joying" time in new ways, as noted above (Timeship: Conception, Technology, Design, Embodiment and Operation, 2003). How might such approaches to "spacetime" offer scope for "en-joying" the world -- and oneself?

Approaches to the experience are explored by the disciplines of psychogeography and mythogeography (Merlin Coverley, Psychogeography, 2006; Phil Smith, Mythogeography: a guide to walking sideways, 2010). With respect to the "pusuit of happiness", this fruitfully reframes the experience of being "here" in contrast with the desire to be "elsewhere" -- potentially within a "spacetime" context which radically reframes their relationship through "en-joyment".

It is intriguing that such speculation is intrinsic to imaginative media products -- books, games, movies, virtual worlds -- which are widely appreciated by the young. And yet there is a paucity of speculation of immediate relevance to world views in conflict (Islam-Judaism, science-religion, etc). This suggests a fundamenytal need for imaginal education informed by the subtleties of mathematical insight such as to enable greater "en-joyment" (Imaginal Education: game playing, science fiction, language, art and world-making, 2003). Remedial global strategies call for simulation of the dynamics of requisite "en-joying".

The following mnemonic configuration is presented to highlight several fruitfully provocative complementarities arising from the above argument (and notably from discussion of cognitive paradox in the Annex).

The configuration highlights the following complementarities arising from the above argument:

those pairs interrelated through their positioning within the four individual Möbius strips -- suggestive of the challenging dynamic of that relationship in each case

Through use of nouns, and in the absence of verbs, the conventional terms used in each case obscure the dynamics with which each is associated. This is especially true of the term:

--
immediately above each strip, indicative of a transcendent dynamic order -- potentially to be described as a complex system or a cognitive attractor of some kind.
-- immediately beneath each strip, indicative of typical conflation and oversimplification of meaning with reference to the term above

that between the developing/enveloping figure relating to a collective dynamic, and the masculine/feminine figure relating to an individual dynamic.

Whilst that on the left is of fundamental consequence to the individual, and that on the right is of fundamental consequence to the collective, the challenge of relating them appropriately remains unresolved -- and is effectively denied and ignored. This is exemplified by the current strategic dependence of the collective on population growth and the longer-term problematic consequences for the quality of life of the individual preoccupied with biological reproduction in a resource-constrained society.

that between the lower figure relating to the external, physical reality and the upper figure relating to the internal, subjective reality of enjoyment.

Whilst the lower may indeed engender a "Theory of Everything", the physics of "everything" is currently conceived to be of no relevance to the subjective process of enjoying it, however that might be more fruitfully understood. Indeed, although there may be every enjoyment in "doing physics", the insights do not enable the happiness of others -- or of physicists in their relationship with their peers and their partners.

that between the various forms of "circulation" associated with the figures, understood as representing a dynamic -- even as a standing wave. These forms of circulation of meaning might be variously described in terms of:

wonder, as the cognitive dynamic characteristic of transcendent "bliss" and "felicity" variously reported by poets and mystics. The term offers a potentially valuable association between "won", for those preoccupied with the goal of "winning", and a phonetic allusion "to one", as a fundamental integrative dynamic

Conclusion

Quest for mnemonic "reminders": This exploration has explored various approaches to cognitive radicalization, notably in relation to engagement with context, as articulated by J. Stan Rowe (What on Earth is Environment?The Trumpeter, 6, 1989, 4. pp. 123-126):

To see the world inside-out is to see it wrongly. Yet that is precisely the perspective that people have brought to the interpretation of their role on Earth. The new vision, from outside-in, more accurately portrays the ecological reality. It reveals people, society, human institutions, as dependent within the encompassing context of the planet. How to express this dawning comprehension? New verbal symbols are needed. Old words, carriers of old concepts and thoughts, are unequal to the task.

From statics to dynamics: The argument has challenged the conventional "static" understanding of "happiness" as the goal of a "pursuit". The cognitive "pursuit of happiness" is then effectively constrained to a "hunter/gatherer", "predator/prey" geometry evoking use of inappropriate military metaphors and static "targets" (Enhancing Sustainable Development Strategies through Avoidance of Military Metaphors, 1998). This understanding is exemplified in a review by Damian Carrington, Head of Environment for The Guardian (The Green Campaigners' Midlife Move, The Guardian, 13 September 2011), arguing that the environmental campaigners who changed the world must now adapt
their guerilla tactics for battles ahead. He concludes however:

The challenge for the next phase of the green movement's life then is tough but essential. It is convincing the world that happiness is having just enough.

Lacking any consistent distinction between "left" and "right" and having no boundary between "inside" and "outside", the Klein bottle effectively contains itself -- paradoxically (as discussed in the Annex). Does this suggest the nature of an appropriately challenging process container for the "having" of "enough"? Is it such a four-dimensional container which would allow for "joy-fullness", given its dynamic implication? (Intercourse with Globality through Enacting a Klein bottle, 2009).

Lifestyle disease: Illness, ultimately resulting in death, can be understood as a "natural" consequence of the conventional "pursuit of happiness" -- most notably in the case of lifestyle diseases. This highlights the extent to which global "business as usual" is characterized by a life-threatening failure of cognitive radicalization -- a failure to "en-joy oneself". In that sense such radicalization could potentially enable healthier engagement with the environment -- through "en-joying the world" -- both by the individual and by the collective (Cognitive Implications of Lifestyle Diseases of Rich and Poor: Transforming personal entanglement with the natural environment, 2010). This merits reflection with respect to the quest for healthy resilience -- if not "immortality" -- in a global civilization currently threatened by collapse, according to various authors. The deadly violence of terrorists can then be understood as a poorly articulated indication of the need for cognitive radicalization -- whose urgency is poorly understood.

Weaving credible associations: In engaging with the emerging knowledge context to survive and thrive, people and groups necessarily weave particular networks of associations they consider credible, with which they can variously identify, and through which they configure a worldview -- somewhat as constellations of stars were (arbitrarily) recognized in the past. These may be understood metaphorically as cocoons, vehicles or magic carpets (Interweaving Thematic Threads and Learning Pathways, 2010; Magic Carpets as Psychoactive Systems Diagrams, 2010).

"Aerials", "songlines" and flow: The tracery of associations is most evidently embodied in hyperlinks, but is echoed otherwise in the aesthetic resonances of poetry and music. It serves as a cognitive interface between the interiority and identity of "oneself" and the externalities of the "world". However, in systemic terms, this tracery is most appropriately understood as a dynamic network of pathways for the flow of insight. It could be fruitfully understood as a form of "aerial" whose (polyhedral?) configuration enables insights to be received. emitted and given coherence.

"En-joying" in this context is then a process of enabling cognitive cycles as suggested by various metaphors articulated by the natural sciences.

Universal insight into happiness: It is extremely significant that understandings of "happiness" are immediately accessible to the individual, however they may be framed.

Pronouncements by distant authorities on their experiential nature are therefore to be appreciated with considerable reservation. Everyone can claim a degree of expertise in the matter, however inadequate their "info-shacks". As in any refugee camp or slum, the issue for each is how to reconcile their own understanding with that of others, where one view has implications for the other.

Interlocking flows: The interface network of cognitive associations merits exploration as a pattern of interlocking flows. It is the circulation within that pattern of flows which offers a better understanding of the "pursuit of happiness" -- namely "through the geometry", in the terms of Ron Atkin (1981). This contrasts with any "pursuit" across that interface into the imagined "world" of otherness.

Complementarity and its transcendence: The approach taken here is to focus both on the activity of "enjoying", as a verbal form indicative of a dynamic, and on the enactive possibilities for the individual indicated by "en-joying" and its associated engagement. The paradoxical relationships between such essentially complementary views are suggestively reconciled using the geometry of the Möbius strip and the Klein bottle. These are indicative of the cognitive complexity of "transcendent order" open to exploration.

As highlighted in the Annex, the experiential engagement with any integrative understandings of such a "transcendent order" is rendered accessible to many through aesthetics, especially poetry. It has proven appropriate to cite there the Bengali polymath Rabindranath Tagore, recipient of the 1913 Prize for Literature, on the occasion of his 150th Birth Anniversary in 2011. His work is one effort to articulate the possibilities for such cognitive engagement in terms of enveloping joy.

Faith-based radicalization: Whilst the dramatic global challenges are only too evident, the role of faith-based governance in response to them (or in exacerbating them) is equally evident. Both the cognitive and the strategic implications of understandings of a "transcendent order" are evident in the degree of credibility currently attached to the cited declaration by Rick Perry, as the possible future President of the USA: I think it's time for us to just hand it over to God, and say, 'God: You're going to have to fix this'. As a form of incitement to "cognitive radicalization", as with the "extremist" views of Sarah Palin (another probable candidate), how is this to be distinguished from incitement to much-deprecated political radicalization? How are the transcendental references, for which both are widely appreciated, to be reconciled with global governance -- in contrast to those of Al-Qaida (Cultivating Global Strategic Fantasies of Choice: learnings from Islamic Al-Qaida and the Republican Tea Party movement, 2010)?

Subsumption: The specificity with which various conventional views regarding "happiness" is associated is reframed here such as to subsume any more restrictive (strategic) alternatives (as indicated in the configuration of figures above). The question is whether there is some kind of analogue to the manner in which a Newtonian framework in physics is subsumed by an Einsteinian framework (with the latter subsumed in turn by string theory as an emergent Theory of Everything). Subsumption then refers to embodiment within a more general category -- associated here with experiential significance. Given the examples from physics, indicative of increasing cognitive complexity, it may well be asked whether such subsumption operates in relation to "happiness", as argued here.

Entrainment and entanglement: The argument indicates forms through which conventional binary dilemmas may be transcended -- whatever that can be understood to mean as a new frontier for human evolution. In this sense the title can also be inverted to suggest En-joying Oneself through En-joying the World. Similarly the traditional case for Transforming Oneself through Transforming the World calls for a transcendent context in which Transforming the World through Transforming Oneself is equally meaningful. It is the cognitive elucidation of the requisite transcendent order -- to which poets and mystics allude -- which is the concluding focus of the argument. The cognitive engagement with that "transcendent order", indicated here as a process of "en-joying", implies a dynamic of entrainment between necessarily entangled understandings of "oneself" and "world".

"Pursuit of happiness": Recognition of a process of subsumption is then potentially relevant with respect to the conventional "pursuit of happiness" as a linear dynamic, possibly of cyclic form. Each is free to discover how that dynamic may be embedded in a more complex cognitive dynamic enabling a more fruitful engagement with the world and its transformation. Notably through use of geometrical templates of higher dimensionality, such cognitive radicalization might come to be recognized as the integrative essence of "globalization".

There is a sense in which the locus of the dynamics of the "pursuit of happiness" -- "en-joying" -- is then exemplified by the emergent boundary of the set. The relational mathematics by which the configuration emerges as a complex nexus "within infinity" offers further reflection. The renderings below were generated through readily available software (Xaos) offering extensive interactive exploration of the detail of the fractal images. Contrary to convention, the images are oriented vertically here (a software option) to be consistent with the widely-known Buddhabrot rendering initiated by Melinda Green in 1993.

Belinda Davis, Wilfried Mausbach, Martin Klimke, and Carla MacDougall (Eds.). Changing the World, Changing Oneself: Political Protest and Collective Identities in West Germany and the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s. Berghahn, 2010 [contents]

Erik Davis. TechGnosis: myth, magic and mysticism in the Age of Information. Five Star, 2005 [summary]

Paul Watzlawick. The Situation Is Hopeless, but Not Serious:
the pursuit of unhappiness. W. W. Norton, 1993 [review]

M. M. Weil, and L. D. Rosen. The Psychological Impact of Technology From a Global Perspective: a study of technological sophistication and technophobia in university students from 23 countries.Computers in Human Behavior,1, 1995, 1, pp. 95-133 [text]